Monday Analysis: Morocco for the Arab World?; Cuba Hails Community of Latin American and Caribbean States

Here's a turn-up for the books: Morocco wanting to cross-over from the African Union and join the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (as this article testifies). Now, Morocco left what was then the Organisation of African Unity in 1984--and has never rejoined what is the successor to the OAU--the African Union.

Interestingly and ironically, Morocco--a non-AU country--plays host to the headquarters of an AU-recognised regional economic community we know as the Arab Maghreb Union. Can the legal brains explain to us how that works?

If Morocco does go ahead and join the Gulf Cooperation Council, as a non-AU-member, what will happen to its relations with the African Union? The article suggests though the GCC sent Morocco an invite, it would be the odd-one-out in the whole group of GCC states whose GDP out-shadows Morocco's in leaps and bounds.

The invite suggests to me that the recent murmurings about the effectiveness--or lack thereof--of the AU might have raised eyebrows in that part of the world to such an extent that they decided to do some digging of the Arab Maghreb Union--only to find that Morocco, perhaps the least disruptive member, is "available" for business.

Whatever inspired the invite, it can only cement the position and the speculation that the so-called international community wherein regional players make a difference is slowly and surely coming into shape in weird and unexpected ways!

Finally, on the Cuba, it was never going to be any surprise that Cuba would support a gargantuan community/comity of states that excludes Canada and the US. As for the extent to which it would be able to effectively marginalise the fairly invisible Organisation of American States(OAS) is anyone's guess.

With big players like Venezuela; Brazil; and Cuba in the fold, you're likely to get bombastic claims about a regional integration that subsumes UNASUR; MERCOSUR; Andean Community.

Truth be told: it's likely to happen sooner than later. The Latin Americans share a language and are in my view perhaps more radicalised in creating a common future than my counterparts over here in Africa could probably ever be!

Monday Analysis: Cameroon in CEMAC; Theories on Regional Integration and UN Regional Commissions

Since my absence for the past two weeks, I have been cogitating and ruminating over the future of regional integration. Not so much what I want to do with RegionsWatch as much as how better to make it.

Let us start with THEORIES. No concept or idea is worth its salt without a theory. So I have resolved to use at least one entry a week to look at some of the theories on regional integration out there that one can touch on. These include "neo-functionalism", attributed to American scholar Ernest B Haas, which is basically a Eurocentric view on regional integration theory that propounds the theory of "spillover" effect as one of the many elements that make up European regional integration. There are the cases of liberal intergovernmentalism--applied to the work of international organisations like the EU and the UN. Today, I came across the theory of "historical institutionalism"--a theory I definitely need to look into more closely before my head explodes!

Bottom line is that regional integration does not exist in a vacuum, and understanding the theory, in my view, is a good and sure way of ensuring that one gets a better appreciation of where this fascinating discipline of international affairs is going. Besides, I see that if I can master the theory, I stand a better chance of not being caught napping over the discipline.

Who's Daniel Bach?
Then there's DANIEL BACH, author of "The European Union's Strategic Partnership with the African Union." In my view, he makes some bombastic claims about the decision by the AU to name economic communities "regional economic communities", and wonders why the more "advanced" RECs like CEMAC, UEMOA, and SACU are not part of the UNECA-mandated eight regional organisations. As much as I see where he is going, he totally isolates the very important element of no less than the UN Regional Commission for Africa--UNECA--having conducted commendable research on regional integration for Africa in a way that some of the regional commissions have not. Neither does Bach touch on the 2006 meeting in the Gambia that "rationalised" the RECs. For a scholar of his standing, I find it self-serving and unacceptable.

Still, there's a lot of terminology I liked: "morphology of regional organisations"; "scramble for REC status": "pick and choose approach to regional economic integration"; "scramble for pre-eminence among regional groupings"...

When I am fully done with the paper, I shall be here for a review.

Quo Vadis UN Regional Commissions?
Speaking of which--I have talked about the UN Regional Commissions many a time, and I am yet to establish the very role they play in the facilitation of regional integration in places other than Africa, where it is crystal-clear UNECA has done great work in spurring debate on aspects of regional integration. Seeing as the jury remains out on where they're going in Latin America(ECLAC), Asia(UNESCAP)and Europe(UNECE)--to name but three regions--I can only promise to get back to you on them. In fact, I am particularly quizzed by the UN Economic Commission for Europe. Given how advanced the EU is in its regional integration, I cannot for the life of me see how it can facilitate EU integration processes. Like I said, jury's still out!

Hegemonic Cameroon--Not!
If Cameroon is featured here in the title, there's a reason: CAMEROON seems to suffer from hegemonic-deficiency in the sense that in the context of CEMAC, I continue to read that it is not pulling its weight in asserting itself in the way Nigeria has done so in ECOWAS, and South Africa naturally in SADC. What could be pulling it back?

I guess the jury's also out on that one! Whatever the case may be, better things are promised for RegionsWatch. To name but a few: a reader of recommended reading, the re-emergence of "BIMANORI", which is likely to come out twice a year in 2010, and four times in 2011.

I am also in the process of developing parameters/indices to "test" the "validity" of regional integration initiatives, which would include things like "imperatives" and what I call "institutional distribution".

Lost? Don't be!

It's all to enhance the experience of being a valued follower/lurker/of Regionswatch Observatory on "Critiquing-Regionalism.org"!

Incidentally, to my friends in Abuja who regularly have their page set on August 2007. I am clueless as to what is so great on that page, but thank you anyway! I do appreciate comments--helps me improve!

Monday Analysis: Of Regional Designs (ASEAN / SCO / East Asian Community / ECOWAS / SADC / IGAD )

The reason I have not been writing much here has been because I have been having an internal dialogue with myself what I'm really doing with all this reading and analysis on regional integration.

One day last year, my boss caught me printing some stuff about the social dimension of some regional integration initiative, prompting him to ask whether it was just for my "edification" (Not for the first time, I was likened to Kafka who is reputed to have written a novel when working in an apparently-dull job!). Truth be told, in many ways it is, but all this cannot just be for the blog--I aspire to get bigger things out of this enterprise than mere writings left in cyber-space.

My belief in regional integration in so many ways is about a world predicated on arrangements that are conducive to a more peaceful world. No doubt, man is a social animal whose genius finds expression in thinking, thought, and possibilities for a better world. I sincerely believe that "better world" can be found in regional designs.

I am heartened by the fact that 2010 is the Year of Peace and Security for the African Union, as well as the year that the Pan-African organisation will seek to operationalise the African Standby Force. I still cannot get over the fact that challenges notwithstanding, the AU has emerged since 2002 as a formidable actor in the set-up of the "regional designs". I hate to say it, but if you even have observers looking at the AU model on human rights as one that could be replicated for East Asia, I believe something must be going right for the AU!

That said, there remain challenges. One of imperatives is one of them.

Over the weekend, I was grappling with what imperative could be ascribed to SADC. I have yet to determine what comes to mind when one thinks of SADC--except power-sharing. From Zimbabwe to Madagascar, I think there has got to be more about the 14-member grouping than that, surely? If any of you know, I would be happy to report and update accordingly. I make a lot of noise about ECOWAS here, so it might be odd if you did not know. For ECOWAS, it's on conflict management, prevention and resolution, and I suspect IGAD might be going the same way, though to a lesser degree. Though I did read somewhere that the Early Warning System was pioneered by the six-member grouping established in 1986.

In South East Asia, Indonesia has been unhappy about talk of the East Asian Community on account of the fact that it believes it cannot happen without Asean. I hope to convey these frustrations over the next couple of weeks. In so many ways, I can empathise with the de jure hegemon that hosts the secretariat of Asean. Asean has been around since 1967--long without Japan. For that country to suddenly swan about talking about an economic community is almost to thumb the nose of ASEAN that has some commendable experience. As they say, though, the devil is in the detail, and I do hope to be reading a bot about the detail.

On the Shanghai Corporation Organisation, there are some interesting developments. I read a paper the other day that explored the possibility of the SCO being a force for good in the region. For the regional grouping that has Russia and China as key countries, this is certainly a grouping to watch out for. It has well-established structures and organisms that are not to be sneezed at. Interestingly, it has been around since 2001. The paper argued that in Afghanistan, the SCO might have a constructive role to play, so one should look out for it there. Also contrary to Western fears, it is not positioning itself to counter Western influences, at least explicitly in the region.

I guess all we can do is wait and see! In the meantime, might I recommend that you visit Stuart Hastings "towardsunity.org" website (http://www.towardsunity.org to obtain insights into where the intrepid regional integrationist has been travelling to. Last time I read him, he was just going to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, that is also the host of the ASEAN secretariat.

In all this, I derive some hope that the regional designs I talk of will find great expression in the following theories below I have propounded elsewhere many times:

First, there needs to be identification of imperatives of each region. Simply put, what is unique about a particular region that that region can capitalise on to bring to bear in the conception of an AU government? So, we can say, for example, that ECOWAS's sub-regional imperative is that of conflict prevention/resolution /management, given its experience with Liberia/Sierra Leone/and the instrumentality of ECOMOG. SADC's might be a different one; the EAC's might be on, say, regional infrastructure. For example, § A paper from UNU-CRIS cites that: “the AU has been the first regional organization to establish a clear relationship with the UN as it is consciously aspiring to closely coordinate, if not integrate, its mission planning and execution of peace and security action with the prevailing structures/plans of the UN”.


Secondly, there needs to be comparative approaches. By this I mean what best practices are there from each of these regional communities that can best be put to good use in any conception of an AU government? This means that ECOWAS's peacekeeping/peace enforcement wing ECOMOG could be analysed for use in a regional organisation like SAARC that has experienced problems over Kashmir/India and Pakistan. What is it that ECOMOG has been able to do in enforcing peace that SAARC can learn from?

Thirdly, there needs to be collaboration, as exemplified by the donation of $1m by the Arab League to the African Union's peacekeeping forces.
from: http://ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com/2009/01/unbearable-lightness-of-being-west.html